For the millions who have been struggling with a baffling illness in the last few years, a recent study on long COVID could finally be a step toward treatment. At the same time, some experts caution that this new sketch of possible symptoms should not be mistaken for a tool that patients can use to diagnose themselves.
More than 100 million people in the U.S. have been sick with COVID, according to a recent survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Census Bureau. Of those who were sick, an estimated 15 percent developed prolonged symptoms linked to long COVID, often disrupting their lives and perplexing health care providers.
For this study published in JAMA, a team at Massachusetts General Brigham analyzed self-reported survey responses from nearly 9,800 patients, who described 37 different symptoms of long COVID six months or more after infection. Taking those symptoms, researchers then developed a scoring system. If a person’s composite symptom score reached a threshold, they were considered “positive” for long COVID (or postacute sequelae of Sars-COV-2 infection), the authors said.
According to that research, the hallmarks of long COVID include:
- post-exertional malaise (i.e. symptoms that worsen after minor physical or mental activity)
- disruption of smell and taste
- chronic cough
- brain fog
- thirst
- palpitations
- chest pain
- fatigue
- diminished sexual desire
- dizziness
- gastrointestinal issues
- abnormal movements such as tremors
Then, researchers analyzed reported symptoms alongside each patient’s history of infection and vaccination, eventually sorting patients into four different clusters of symptoms and severity. For individuals who had been infected with COVID more than once and had not received their full primary series of vaccine doses, the authors found evidence of worse outcomes.